[Toddsterpatriot]

Then, traders said, someone started buying large amounts of stock index futures contracts through two major brokerage firms -- Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. These transactions are usually done on the QT so we don't really know how many of these contracts were purchased.

You understand how this is completely different from your original assertion? This guy thinks that the Treasury, I guess, told Goldman and Merrill to go into the stock futures pit, probably on the Merc, and start buying large quantities of futures contracts. These would be public (not private) transactions that hit the floor of the exchange and would cause the market to rise.

Because these are public trades they cannot, by any stretch of the imagination (even yours and Robert McHugh's), be considered in any way shape or form, repos. So, the decision to stop publishing M3 would not hide these supposed transactions because they aren't currently shown in M3.

Thanks for the clarification.

[expat_panama]

Maybe we need to be honest here.  The reality is that Todd and I actually are active members of a group that changes stock prices in order to eliminate sever dips or excessive peaks.  We do this not only for the sake of market stability, but also for our own personal gain and (through our taxes) for national solvency.

Here's how we do it.  We determine which equity securities are being dumped on the market below fair market value.  We use are own life savings to buy them and we've found that this not only prevents prices from falling further, it can even force prices up..   Later on, when we see a shortage of these same financial instruments --because they're being artificially withheld from those who really need them, we offer our own assets up for sale at prices lower than that of the cartels.

Don't bother to thank us, that just the kind of people we are.